Quotes About Carpetbaggers

By this time, everyone understood that [President] Hayes would adopt a new Southern policy. As matters look to me now, wrote the chariman of Kansas' Republican state committee on February 22 [1877], I think the policy of the new administration will be to conciliate the white men of the South. Carpetbaggers to the rear, and niggers take care of yourselves. (p.581)

According to legend, he had worn elegant clothes and spoken Parisian French and had his land and wealth stolen from him by carpetbaggers after the war.

Barringtons aren't local by origin. They're carpetbaggers from Philadelphia—an offshoot of a House that had grown too big to govern. Or more to the point, it'd grown too big for everyone to successfully get along without a whole lot of murdering going on.